TODD YATES/CALLER-TIMES
Linda Villarreal, 54, executive director of Education Service Center Region 2, attends a meeting Monday with her staff. Villarreal will retire in January after nine years at the center.

Corpus Christi Caller-Times

CORPUS CHRISTI - Linda Villarreal will tell you the Education Service Center Region 2 helped her teaching career when she needed it most — as a first-year teacher in 1979.

Little did the 22-year-old Texas A&I University graduate know she would become the service center's executive director and help superintendents from the region's 42 school districts and multiple charter schools.

Villarreal, 54, who started her career with the help of the center, plans to retire as the center's top official Jan. 31 after nine years at the helm.

"She's going to leave a big gap here as she is going to be missed by all," he said.

He said the board plans to meet next week to determine whether to consider hiring a consulting firm to search for a successor or to conduct its own search.

Villarreal was first hired as a teacher at Kingsville ISD's Memorial Middle School.

The 1976 Miller High School graduate came into the job without a clear structure for students no matter how hard she tried, she said. After being told her contract wasn't going to be renewed at the end of the 1979-80 school year, she made drastic changes.

A colleague and veteran teacher told her to go to the education service center in Corpus Christi for help and Villarreal took classroom management courses during the summer.

The next school year, she contacted parents of her 130 students by phone or wrote them letters saying who she was and what she planned to teach.

"And it set the stage," Villarreal said.

Omar Leal, a Corpus Christi attorney who took Villarreal's speech class at Memorial Middle School in 1988-89, said "Ms. V" was the teacher every student wanted to have and she always kept class interesting with interactive activities.

"To me, that just made learning easier; more fun," Leal said.

Villarreal often shares the story of her struggles with the superintendents and directors she leads in the Coastal Bend. Many have said she always tells them to never give up.

Villarreal has led the charge in recent years on projects such as helping find funds for the region's Early Scholars Academy learning center that opened in March 2011 and assisting with a donation drive where area schoolchildren garnered funds for science labs at long-struggling Premont Independent School District as part of sweeping demands by the state to allow it to remain open.

"She is such a champion for children in South Texas," Premont Superintendent Ernest Singleton said.

Not only has she helped area students but she also provides support to the region's superintendents and their staffs.

"She's been such a beacon of hope for me personally, you know, because there's been some really tough days," Singleton said. "She's always been able to help lift me up and give me hope."

CCISD Superintendent Scott Elliff said Villarreal always remains positive, even when delivering news to district leaders that might not be cheerful.

"She makes it her business to make sure we have all the information we need to be successful in our districts," he said.